Looking down Spruce street

I wrote drinking blues back in 2018, but I believe it remains quite relevant. Perhaps never more so now that we live with a pandemic. It's a song about how things seem to continuously change around us, either because they themselves change or because we do.

It is inspired by that common feeling of strangeness we get when we come back to a place after many years. Inevitably, things are going to be (and look) different. The buildings, the trees, the people. For better or worse, they change. Regardless of whether these changes are obvious or subtle, we can always feel it: it's the "same" place, but it's not the same place.

But sometimes, we don't need to wait for years to get that feeling. We don't even need to leave a place. It just happens in an instant. One second everything is known and familiar and the next, everything looks strange. One day, the city belongs to us, its streets, its houses, its landscape. And the next, it looks like a vague memory. This strangeness comes not from a change in the outside, but from one on the inside. Things haven't changed, we have. And seeing the same thing with different eyes makes it seem like something different.

Old and new

I came up with "sipping on sorrow and drinking blues" when I was visiting Chicago in 2012. That and the riff. But I never touched it again until late 2018, when I finally finished the chorus and the song. At the time, I actually lived right between Spruce street and Pine street in West Philadelphia. Although to be honest, you'd have to lean outside the kitchen window to actually see Spruce.

The track so far

I'm still working on arrangements and tracking for this song because I think it needs to have some more elaborate instrumentation than aftoi me phi. To give you an idea of what I'm thinking, here's the solo I have in mind for the break before the bridge. I'm not convinced about the trumpet (could become a trombone), but I really like that warm organ sound:

Anyway, all I really have for now is a cellphone recording of the song concept. It's rough on the ears, but if you're feeling adventurous, have a listen and let me know what you think in the comments.